Bunshichi Tawara
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Bunshichi Tawara (俵 文七 Tawara Bunshichi) is a character in the manga and anime series tenjho tenge. He is a member of the early Juuken Club, and the Enforcement Group in name only. He was also the vice president of the gang, Katana, as well as the commander of the gang's special forces[1].
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[edit] Character outline
Bunshichi is a 20 year old white haired man. He has been a senior for 3 years, but still has not graduated. He actually is not stupid, but claims the Shin incident ruined his beautiful school life causing him not to graduate[2].
He is without question the laziest character in the series. Bunshichi does not like to do anything, joining the Juuken Club solely so they would have enough members. Later as a member of the Enforcement Group, Mitsuomi Takayanagi appoints him as the advisor (essentially their strategist), where he again does nothing claiming he only signed up in name only. Not only is he lazy he is also perverted, usually focusing on women with big breasts[3], and sometimes referring to them as deadly weapons. In the manga he repeatedly threatens to rape people[4][5], it is a joke of his own perversion, as he has not carried out these threats.
Despite his appearance and attitude, when Bunshichi actually fights, he is quite dangerous. He was ranked as the strongest fighter in Todou until Mitsuomi won the Tournament 2 years ago. During his time as the commander of Katana's Special Forces, he single-handedly defeated all their enemies. He became known as a so-called "God of Fighting" as a result [1]. Bunshichi is likely one of the few characters that is capable of lasting the full 3 minutes with Mitsuomi. He is easily one of the most powerful characters in the series. However, Bunshichi seems to be on his own side, Emi Isuzu even refers to him as a possible enemy[6] despite the fact he too is part of the Enforcement Group.
Despite how powerful he is, Bunshichi is frequently used as comic relief. Both his perversion and laziness are subjects of the jokes, but occasionally his actions are part of the jokes as well. A good example is in the bowling alley, he tells Mitsuomi that Souichiro Nagi is only responding to his murderous intent, and is harmless. Insisting Mitsuomi should leave him alone. Souichiro then punches Bunshichi in the face and Bunshichi wails on him. He often disguises intelligent moves as humor as well. When he interfered in that fight, by pouring water on Mitsuomi then pointing out Souichiro was only reacting to Mitsuomi, it was first thought only to be humor. However Mitsuomi later references that if Bunshichi hadn't shown up he may have hit his time limit and lost.
Bunshichi also seems to play mentor role to some characters. Kōji Sagara (Saga Mask) entrusts Bunshichi with his mask; Kagesada Sugano hovers around Bunshichi for the majority of the tournament in his freshman year, and Bunshichi still motivates him occasionally; and Masataka Takayanagi also looks up to him (although Bunshichi seems to be schooling Masataka in the art of perversion).
[edit] Techniques & Abilities
Bunshichi has no martial art style, he uses his own street fighting style utilizing his very strong arms. He has earned the nickname "Double Impact Tawara" for his powerful arms. He also refers to himself as "Exorcist Tawara" as a running joke when fighting people with special powers.
[edit] Muscle Increase
When Bunshichi enters combat he increases the size of his arms, usually shredding the sleeves of his shirt in the process.
[edit] Synopsis
[edit] Anime and OVA's
[edit] Story Setup Arc
Bunshichi first appears during the Enforcement Group's attack on the Juuken Club in a bowling alley. He talks with Maya, and later interupts the fight between Mitsuomi and Souichiro Nagi. Later Souichiro and Bob Makihara try to turn in their withdrawl papers to prevent Maya from getting in trouble but Bunshichi rips the papers up and calls them idiots. After he and Emi beat down the two when they attack in anger, he carries them back to Bob's house. He hits on Bob's girlfriend, Chiaki, and she requests that Bunshichi explain the past to them. Bunshichi agrees but insists he needs alcohol to start talking. They of course insist he is lying when he gets to parts where he shows just how strong he really is.
[edit] Flashback Arc
Little is known about Bunshichi's history or how he got so strong, but at some point he became friends with Shin Natsume and joined the gang, Katana. He single handedly won the one years tournament, when Shin did not even fight. As a result even though Shin is the head of the group Bunshichi was ranked number 1 in the school and Shin was number 2.
Bunshichi seems to get along well with Shin and Mitsuomi, but he is not above mischief. As Mitsuomi starts his affair with Shin's girlfriend Mana Kuzunoha, not only does Bunshichi find out and watch, he takes pictures using them to taunt and bug Mitsuomi. When Mana provides Mitsuomi a video, he asks Bunshichi to watch it with him. Initially Bunshichi sleeps through the beginning, but is woken up by Mitsuomi for the strange part. After witnessing the video of Shin slaughtering people with the evil ceremonial nodachi Reiki, Bunshichi claims he's known Shin for ten years, but does not recognize him there. Bunshichi discovers the identity of the mysterious Katana hunter, taking out the members of their gang and decides to hide it from the others. Since the Katana hunter is Maya Natsume, he knew the other members would go for revenge and fearing the repercussions from the unstable Shin.
Eventually the other members find out anyway and decide to make Maya pay. Shin picks up on this with his dragon eyes and severely beats and nearly kills all of them. Bunshichi takes it upon himself to end Shin's insanity, planning to beat sense into him. On the way, he spotted Emi videotaping him, figuring that she knew were Shin was, he confronted her. Scared after he reaches for her chest, she stabs him in the hand and a chase ensues. While Bunshichi is insisting that she hand over her body to him as payment for the damage to his hand, she grabs more of her blades and prepares to fight him. During the fight, she moves to the side as a car slams into Bunshichi. As he gets up the car backs up and comes for a second hit to finish him off. This is the first time Bunshichi is shown using his power. His arms increase in size shredding his sleeves, and he punches the car's grill. The car is totaled, in the anime the car actually goes flying over him and explodes behind him. He gets a GPS tracker from Emi (Mana later explains she keeps 3 trackers on Shin at all times) and hails a taxi. The taxi driver of course sees he has a woman's unconscious body, and is bleeding and tries to keep going. Bunshichi actually throws Isuzu's body in the street to force him to stop. The taxi driver takes Bunshichi to where Shin is despite being told to pull over by the other Takayanagi bodyguards.
Shin is meeting with Dōgen Takayanagi, Mitsuomi's father. Bunshichi immediately picks a fight with Shin, despite the fact Shin has possession of Reiki and Bunshichi is injured and unarmed. Shin's dragon eyes are activated and his aura gives Bunshichi hallucinations of being cut by Reiki. Bunshichi announces that even if he dies, he'll still find a way to kill Shin. Just then Shin stabs him through the thigh. Shin knocks him into a car, then stands on the roof of the car stabbing Bunshichi in the legs. Shin spends quite a bit of time stabbing Bunshichi's legs, more than anyone could consider necessary. Eventually Mana can't take it anymore and yells at Shin stopping him. She then takes Reiki away from him. The second the sword leaves his hand, Bunshichi punches the side of the car as hard as he can sending him flying at Shin. He hits Shin hard sending him flying into another car. Bunshichi then announces Shin's power is second rate as he can't use his dragon eyes without Reiki (this statement is later proven false). Despite his legs being full of holes, Bunshichi stands up, all be it squirting blood and with a lot of difficulty. Shin stands back up and staggers, for which Bunshichi calls him a sissy. From that point on, the fight was entirely one sided for Bunshichi as he completely devastating Shin. After knocking Shin down, he comments that he should be called "Exorcist Tawara" as a joke. Shin looks at Reiki, Bunshichi dares him to go for it. As Shin runs for it Bunshichi tears the side mirror off a car and throws it, hitting Shin in the head and knocking him down. He then knocks out Shin, by smashing him into a car. As Shin regains consciousness he starts crawling for Reiki, with the dragon eyes activated. Bunshichi then kicks him in the eye knocking him out again and damaging his eye forcing him to wear an eye patch for a while.
Despite all of this, Bunshichi still visits Shin in the hospital and still considers him his best friend. Later Shin creates the Juuken Club in order to compete in the schools annual tournament. Mitsuomi signs up, and Bunshichi signs up so they would have more members, but he is quite insistent that he is joining in name only. The tournament rules say you can attack at any time, you can even kill. Despite this Bunshichi still refuses to fight, still citing that he signed in name only. At one point as Maya and Mitsuomi fight a group outside Bunshichi is laying on the floor inside reading a magazine and scratching himself, saying it is their problem. At one point he does do some work, a girl group attacks him and Kagesada (almost solely referred to by his nickname, Asshat, in the manga). Bunshichi shatters the ends of the spears that they have and jokingly comments that anyone who wants to get raped should come closer. Naturally the girls stopped their attack, thus ended what little work Bunshichi did in the tournament. In the finals it almost looked as if he would have to fight as everyone, but at the last second Mitsuomi showed up and claimed all fights for himself.
In the fight between Mitsuomi and Shin which was suppose to decide who became the president of the Enforcement group, Bunshichi is the first to step up to stop Shin after his dragon eyes activated. He is quickly dropped by a hard elbow. Sometime after the fight, Mitsuomi appoints Bunshichi as the Enforcement Group's advisor. Like before, he only joined the group in name and never does anything. In the bowling alley incident, Mitsuomi says it would have been over from the start had Bunshichi taken command, his response was that the deal was he wouldn't have to do anything.
[edit] Manga
[edit] F Arc
After the flashback Bunshichi is a background character, occasionally around for his humorous perversion. However, as Madoka Mawari attacks Bob, Bunshichi goes and informs Masataka. On his way out he asks the picture of Shin if its a cruel joke of his that people seem to be repeating history, Shin's ghost appears and asks why Bunshichi doesn't just "smash it all up" with those arms he's so proud of. Mastaka later arrives and quickly defeats Madoka, Bunshichi indirectly saved Bob's life.
Later the brainwashed Fu Chi'en returns and attacks the Juuken Club. As Bunshichi closes the family store, he hears a banging on the door. He opens it and Masataka and Madoka collapse inside. Masataka reveals the Juuken Club was attacked and given that Bunshichi beat Shin, he could be able to help. Given his Nature Bunshichi is initially hesitant to help, but does step up to fight. He punches Fu and comments that it looks like "Exocist Tawara" Returns. Masataka does the Majority of the fighting but when Masataka references that he wishes he was as strong as his brother, Bunshichi smacks Fu on the head and tells him to "chill out for a bit", he then lectures Masataka on how he shouldn't want to be a "cripple" like Mitsuomi. Fu continues his attacks by electrocuting Bunshichi; Bunshichi doesn't even stop lecturing and punches Fu so hard he flies down the street. He warns Masataka that he is currently the only one outside of the "wheel of fate" and he shouldn't rush to throw himself into it. At the conclusion of his lecture, Bunshichi picks up Fu and accuses him of trying to mess up his "beautiful, rose colored school life". Suddenly half the city blacks out and Bunshichi realizes Fu is sucking all the electricity into himself to vaporize everyone, including himself. As Bunshichi tells everyone to run Masataka rushes Fu, and hits him hard. It actually shatters the amulets in Fu's eye sockets and sends him over a building, freeing him from his mind control and stopping the attack. The majority of the Juuken Club ends up sleeping at Bunshichi's house, his parents are actually very happy to have the company.
[edit] Sohaku & Tournament Arcs
During the Sohaku Arc, Bob, Masataka, and Bunshichi were sitting on a curb waiting to see what happened. Since then Bunshichi has been returned to playing his usual comic relief role. It is likely he will get more attention later as the manga is still incomplete.
[edit] Trivia
- Bunshichi references that an opponent with Masataka's fighting style is the type of opponent he least wants to face[7]
[edit] References
- ^ a b "Tenjho Tenge" Manga; volume 5 tankōbon (Chapter 31, Page 132).
- ^ "Tenjho Tenge" Manga; (Chapter 72, Page 02).
- ^ "Tenjho Tenge" Manga; volume 12 tankōbon (Chapter 70, Page 11).
- ^ "Tenjho Tenge" Manga; volume 5 tankōbon (Chapter 29, Page 78).
- ^ "Tenjho Tenge" Manga; volume 7 tankōbon (Chapter 43, Page 112).
- ^ "Tenjho Tenge" Manga; volume 9 tankōbon (Chapter 55, Page 117).
- ^ "Tenjho Tenge" Manga; volume 12 tankōbon (Chapter 70, Page 9).
